NHBC, the UK’s largest new homes warranty and insurance provider, recently hosted the first Affordable Housing Innovators event in partnership with the British Property Federation
Part of NHBC’s established Innovators event series, this energetic new addition to the programme saw affordable housing professionals gather to explore ‘Innovation through partnership’, the event’s theme. Delegates gathered to hear industry updates, learn about the latest developments in placemaking and network with CEOs and senior directors from across the affordable housing sector.
Held in central London at The Conduit in Covent Garden, a broad range of industry stakeholders were in attendance. These included delegates representing the Greater London Authority (GLA), L&G Affordable Homes, Clarion, Bromford, VIVID and Cambridge City Council, among many others.
The speakers
Charlie Ash, sector lead for Housing Associations at NHBC delivered a welcome address to delegates before Affordable Housing Innovators was opened by keynote speaker Shahi Islam, director of Affordable Housing at Homes England.
He discussed the current affordable housing landscape, the pressures the sector faces in needing to deliver more homes more quickly and the Affordable Homes Programme (AHP) top-up, as announced in the last Budget. Further topics touched upon included rent policy, the planning framework, housing strategy, tenure priority, shared ownership and consumer standards. He stressed the importance of the sector working together to improve outcomes and the role Homes England plays in the wider industry.
Next the audience heard from Marcus Dixon, director of UK Residential Research at JLL. He talked about the challenges the sector faces in delivery and explained how ambitious government targets mean the industry must build more than 140,000 more homes per year than it is currently. Marcus also shared that despite 62,000 affordable homes being completed in the last 12-month period, affordable housing waiting lists grew by 43,000 households. This means the sector would have needed to deliver 105,000 homes in that 12-month period just to keep the waiting list at the same number as the previous year.
He also discussed the importance of planning reform, and how last year the number of units granted permission fell by 14%. Marcus shared that he believes there is significant scope for further investment into affordable housing, particularly through effective partnerships in the future.
Pecha Kucha
Delegates were then treated to three sessions, with three different speakers in the form of Pecha Kuchas. A Pecha Kucha is a strictly timed presentation with a set number of slides each on screen for just 20 seconds. It makes for fast-paced delivery and snappy presentations, as when your time is up, it’s up and you must make way for the next speaker! The event’s Pecha Kucha speakers were Angela Wood of the G15 Development Directors’ Group, Nick Cumberland from Great Places and Stephen Teagle of Vistry Group.
Angela Wood
Angela Wood, chair of the G15 Development Directors’ Group, was up first racing the clock. She briefly introduced the G15, explaining the group’s function and how it’s made up of London’s leading Housing Associations; as an entity, it’s the largest provider of affordable homes in the capital and houses one in ten of all Londoners. A startling statistic Angela shared was that in London, more than 323,000 households are on waiting lists for social housing – that’s more than double the population of Cambridge.
As well as the need for new sustainable homes, she spoke of the importance of meeting the decarbonisation challenge for older stock too – for some providers that includes improving stock built as far back as the 1800s. She revealed Peabody alone is spending over a million pounds a day investing in residents’ homes and spoke of the scale of investment needed across London to bring homes up to standard for the future. Using case studies to illustrate her points, Angela shared what she believes good looks like, with schemes such as Southmere in Thamesmead, Holloway Park in Islington and Friary Park in Ealing showcased. Angela shared her belief that investment in affordable housing is good for the wider economy as well as those needing access to quality, affordable homes.
Nick Cumberland
Nick Cumberland, head of Delivery Programme at Great Places, followed Angela. He opened by explaining that he believes innovation requires an open mind to new ideas, products, solutions and ways of working to achieve enhanced impact. Adding to this, he said that to partner effectively requires an understanding of each other’s priorities and that together these factors enable us to achieve success. Nick explained that in the affordable housing sphere, we need compliant procurement methods that enable access to a strong supply chain.
He went on to share that Great Places host two sector leading construction frameworks valued at over £1.5bn to enable it and peers to access contractors, suppliers, and construction professionals to support delivery. Through these frameworks, effective partnerships are forged, and opportunities progressed – importantly social value is also driven to ensure long term benefit for communities.
Using examples he expanded on his points, sharing that through those frameworks, Great Places deliver homes with a wide range of construction partners – 23 across 41 sites right now – and is making this happen by employing a variety of techniques and deploying new technologies as the sector heads towards the Future Homes Standard.
Stephen Teagle
The final Pecha Kucha was delivered by Stephen Teagle, chief executive of Partnerships and Regeneration at Vistry Group. Stephen began his presentation explaining the scale of the challenge facing the sector – with 1.3m households on housing waiting lists and £2.3bn spent on temporary accommodation, the scale of the issue facing local authorities, providers and developers is huge. He demonstrated the breadth of Vistry Group’s partnership working and the journey partners take with the developer to bring projects to fruition, and shared examples of successful partnership developments from rural Dracan Village in Burton-upon-Trent to urban Brunel Street Works in London. Stephen discussed the Vistry Innovation Centre (VIC), and its importance to the sector – it’s a unique facility incorporating cutting-edge technologies that will help meet Vistry’s net zero ambitions, as well as the delivery of the Future Homes Standard coming into operation in 2025. Stephen talked passionately about the industry meeting the needs of the future today and the importance of continuing to innovate to meet demand.
A lively Q&A followed, with all the evening’s speakers and presenters fielding a broad range of questions from the audience. Charlie Ash, sector lead for Affordable Housing at NHBC, commented, “I’d like to say a special thank you to Ian Fletcher at the British Property Federation for working with us to deliver this flagship affordable housing event. Unsurprisingly, with partnership as the central theme, the importance of collaboration and working together was emphasised by many of the speakers. It’s encouraging house building has risen in the political and media agendas in the past year, but quality, affordable housing must remain at the heart of the industry, along with solutions to unlocking housing delivery. NHBC is proud to work in trusted partnership with housing associations, local authorities, developers, house builders, contractors, and the wider affordable housing market with a focus on long-term asset protection, helping to build right first time. This event gave delegates the opportunity to connect with like-minded professionals from all parts of the sector and it was a pleasure to host in partnership with the British Property Federation.”
Ian Fletcher, director of Policy at the British Property Federation commented: “The importance of collaboration and partnership working is more to the fore than it has ever been. Demand for affordable housing is only growing, and the sector is under more pressure than ever before to deliver. It was a privilege to listen to our speakers and hear about their positive experiences of the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors working together.
“By combining the commercial expertise and investment potential of the for-profit sector, with the social purpose and placemaking knowledge of the not-for-profit sector, we can do great things together, accelerating affordable house building in the UK. Ultimately however, we must always remain conscious of residents and keep them at the heart of all we do.”
Key takeaways from Affordable Housing Innovators
A broad range of topics were explored over the course of the evening, but some common themes came through:
- that in order to accelerate affordable housing delivery, the sector must partner and collaborate further with private sector investment
- effective partnerships must be equal and balanced, with neither party gaining at the expense of the other
- sustainability and efficiency can’t be an afterthought – homes must be built with the future in mind
- despite the scale of the challenge that faces the sector, quality must be prioritised
- and that the needs of the resident must be at the heart of placemaking.
See below for a short video from the 2025 Affordable Housing Innovators event, speaking with some of the evening’s delegates about what they think of the current state of the sector and what’s to come:
NHBC’s role in the affordable housing sector
NHBC works in partnership with housing associations, builders, local authorities and Build to Rent providers to deliver quality new homes, providing unrivalled expertise from early-stage planning through to completion, with a focus on building it right, first time. As a well-established, trusted industry partner, NHBC provides unrivalled insight and horizon scanning throughout a development’s build journey.
As a direct insurer underwriting its own policies, NHBC has a vested interest in the prevention of structural defects and in successful, long-term asset protection. To learn more about how NHBC can help you, contact Charlie Ash, sector lead – Affordable Housing, at cash@nhbc.co.uk.
